Probe af­ter blaze rips through home

AN IN­VES­TI­GA­TION has been launched af­ter a blaze at an Aberdeen house. The fire at the prop­erty, on Bankhead Road in Bucks­burn, was de­scribed as “well de­vel­oped” by the Scot­tish Fire and Res­cue Ser­vice. Res­i­dents to­day told how they watched in hor­ror as flames ripped through the roof and the oc­cu­pants took refuge with neigh­bours. The fire broke out at around 4.44pm yes­ter­day and fire­fight­ers spent 15 min­utes bat­tling the blaze. Nine­teen fire­fight­ers, four ap­pli­ances and a high-reach ve­hi­cle at­tended the scene af­ter a smoke alarm alerted the home­own­ers to the fire. There were no ca­su­al­ties, but the prop­erty suf­fered sig­nif­i­cant dam­age to the roof. Fire­fight­ers had to re­move roof tiles while tack­ling the blaze. Sta­tion man­ager Graeme Laird said: “It was a well-de­vel­oped fire when the crews got here. “We are now look­ing into in­ves­ti­gat­ing what the cause was – but at the mo­ment we have no idea.” The road was closed to traf­fic for sev­eral hours, with of­fi­cers from Po­lice Scot­land on the scene to help with traf­fic man­age­ment. Neigh­bours in the street to­day told of their shock. One said: “The flames were com­ing through the roof. “It’s ter­ri­ble, you wouldn’t wish any­thing like this on your worst en­emy.” An­other res­i­dent said: “You could see the smoke from the other end of the street. You could also hear the glass crack­ing with the fire.”

Fire crews at the scene on Bankhead Road in Bucks­burn where flames ripped through the roof of a house